THE GETTY AWARDS OVER $1.5 MILLION
FOR PRESERVATION EFFORTS AT 10 HISTORIC COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES NATIONWIDE

2005 Campus Heritage Grants Recipients Are Announced

October 7, 2005

LOS ANGELES—The Getty Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic supporters of visual arts in the country, has presented more than $1.5 million to 10 new 2005 Campus Heritage grant recipients. Since 2002, the Getty has awarded more than 60 grants to colleges and universities in a nationwide effort to preserve historic buildings, sites, and landscapes. The Campus Heritage grant initiative has enabled educational institutions across the nation to research and develop conservation plans to protect campuses in all regions of the country, from Alaska to Arizona, Maine to Mississippi.

“The preservation planning efforts supported by the Campus Heritage grants are helping American institutions of higher education to protect some of the most important buildings and landscapes in the country,” says Deborah Marrow, director of the Getty Foundation. “Over the past four years, we have been impressed by their commitment to ensuring the future of their built heritage.”

Colleges and universities often include some of the most important buildings in their regions. Designed by major architects of the day, some are built on archaeologically or historically important sites. Among the 2005 Campus Heritage grantees is Bennington College in Vermont, which includes an 18th-century saltbox cottage that was once home to the poet Robert Frost, as well as several distinctive International Style buildings. At Berry College, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, grant funds will be used to support a survey of the campus’ buildings, including log cabins built by students during founder Martha Berry’s lifetime (1865–1942).

Getty grants have also been awarded to several campuses of historical importance for African Americans, including Clark Atlanta University, which is part of the Atlanta University Center (AUC), the largest consortium of historically black institutions in the United States. Fellow AUCs, Morehouse and Spelman Colleges, are both previous Campus Heritage grant recipients.

In New York, grant recipients include Vassar College in Poughkeepsie and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Vassar, the first endowed college to provide a liberal arts curriculum for women, features a huge Second Empire-style building, designed by James Renwick Jr. and patterned after the Tuilleries Palace, alongside other important examples of Medieval Revival, Colonial Revival, Beaux Arts, Modern, and Postmodern architecture. Founded in 1887, Pratt Institute was designed by some of the most notable 19th-century architects of the day, including Lamb and Rich, and McKim, Mead, and White. It was also one of the earliest schools established to provide education to the working class by creating a curriculum for the training of artisans, designers, architects, draftsman, milliners, dressmakers, and other technicians.

The 2005 Campus Heritage grants will help protect buildings in a range of historically significant styles, from Italianate, Neoclassical, Arts and Crafts, and Georgian Revival buildings at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to the Gothic-revival campus of the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, which has schooled military leaders such as “Stonewall” Jackson and George C. Marshall.

This year, in a collaborative approach to campus heritage planning at small colleges, the Campus Heritage grants will help the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation develop plans for four local institutions: Allegheny College, Geneva College, Grove City College, and Slippery Rock University. The four schools, located within 100 miles of Pittsburgh, exhibit a range of campus planning, academic buildings and landscapes that represent American architectural history both nationally and locally. Also taking a multi-campus approach is New Mexico State University, which is surveying all of the University’s properties across the state.

The recipient of this year’s largest grant, the University of Oregon, will use funds for preservation planning for the institution’s buildings and landscape. Given careful consideration to the use of open space, the 295-acre campus contains 500 species and 2,500 specimens of trees.

The J. Paul Getty Trust is an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts that features the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Getty Research Institute. The J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty programs serve a varied audience from two locations: the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu.